Need help with making a normal map in Gimp please.

[Fidcal]

I made one or two normal maps a couple of years ago but only have a vague memory and now I have a different PC.

 

So download Gimp and get a normal map plug in. I can't identify this other than it has the name Shawn Kirst in the readme. He says to put the exe in the plug-ins folder and the dlls in the bin folder. But having relaunched Gimp I can't see 'normal' in the filter > map menu.

[solarsplace]

I made one or two normal maps a couple of years ago but only have a vague memory and now I have a different PC.

 

So download Gimp and get a normal map plug in. I can't identify this other than it has the name Shawn Kirst in the readme. He says to put the exe in the plug-ins folder and the dlls in the bin folder. But having relaunched Gimp I can't see 'normal' in the filter > map menu.

 

Hi

 

If you scroll down to the bottom of this page (http://wiki.thesimsresource.com/index.php?title=Normal_Map), there is a link to the latest version and also instructions confirming where to copy the files to in your Gimp installation.

 

May be worth downloading the latest version and checking your installed version of Gimp is 2.4 or higher just in case you have a really old version?

 

Hope that helps.

 

CHeers

Edited September 14, 2010 by solarsplace

[Fidcal]

Thanks - that's the same one I downloaded though and I just got the latest Gimp today. It confirms the same folders but the tutorial only refers to Photoshop so it doesn't help finding how to make a normal map in Gimp.

 

I'll do another search.

[solarsplace]

Thanks - that's the same one I downloaded though and I just got the latest Gimp today. It confirms the same folders but the tutorial only refers to Photoshop so it doesn't help finding how to make a normal map in Gimp.

 

I'll do another search.

 

Hi

 

Did you manage to get the filters / map / normal map menu item to show now?

 

Here are some links I collected already that might help you:

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10585

 

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/GIMP:_Quality_Normal_Maps

 

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Normal_Map_Creation_in_The_GIMP

 

Good luck

[Fidcal]

No. I found another tutorial and it has a screenshot showing the filter > map menu and it shows normalmap but mine doesn't. So I checked once again I put the files into the correct folders and yes, they are.

 

I'm just wondering if Gimp needs you to do something else to 'activate' or register plug-ins as well as put them in the folder.

[solarsplace]

No. I found another tutorial and it has a screenshot showing the filter > map menu and it shows normalmap but mine doesn't. So I checked once again I put the files into the correct folders and yes, they are.

 

I'm just wondering if Gimp needs you to do something else to 'activate' or register plug-ins as well as put them in the folder.

 

mmm, what OS version you running (prays to god its not Vista)? maybe its a permissions issue on the new files?

 

I don't remember doing anything special to get it to work on my install.

[Fidcal]

I think I see the problem. Gimp forcibly installed itself without any options so I looked in program files and found it. But now I see there is an install in program files x86. I don't understand this because I previously searched to see if I already had an install on this PC but could not see one. That made sense because I've not used it for two years - on my old PC. Anyway, see if I can figure it out.

[Fidcal]

I completely reshaded the diffusemap to try to remove the shadows but have lost the best of the colour I think. Probably also need a tad more gaussian to soften the mono I'm using to make the normal map. I have to completely reshade the original diffusemap again I think as it's lost the glorious reddish golden glow of the original.

 

This first image is with the new diffuse and normal on the right and with the original material on the left.

The second image is the original diffuse but the new normal. Ho hum. Suggestions welcome.

 

 

 

You see how flat the original looks especially on the straight molding and this is with very low to get the maximum accentuation of relief. With front lighting it looks totally flat.

[Serpentine]

Well, since I've worked on the other moldings, let me try give you my approach to this. Do note that I have taken to doing things very manually and it does take a bit of time.

 

First of all you need to come to terms with what you are trying to work with here. Lets do it

• Take the diffuse you are making the new normal for, blow it up to double size - because when remaking something, why not make it last?
  
• Take the old normal and throw it into njob, convert normal->heightmap.
  
• Overlay it on the diffuse.
  
• Does this heightmap seem correct? it wont be perfect, but does it reflect the depths and levels which the diffuse shows? Keep these things in mind, and take a look from time to time to make sure you're avoiding the mistakes you saw.
  
• Chances are it doesn't, so hide that layer.
  
• Make a new folder in your layers, starting at black, layer on the different levels, working your way up to white, do each one as a separate layer, start out with rough shapes and once all the layers are there you can work to match it up to the diffuse by overlaying it with low opacity.
  
• Avoid blurring/smudging to make gradual height until you're satisfied everything is in place, when doing gradiant slopes merge the two layers and using whatever tools, usually a bit of blurring and smudging try to match the expected results.
  
• Once you think it shows the basic layer of the texture, copy a merged version of the heightmap and throw it back into nJob, convert height->normal.
  
• Test it ingame, does it show up the areas you want as you would expect? Does it miss depth in specific areas?
  
• If you need to increase heights or blur hard edges, its easily done with the layers, much easier than using levels to adjust specific parts.
  

 

Bringing details back into the normal - be gentle!

• Duplicate your old diffuse, desaturated it and then use a high-pass filter to pull out the details, edges and such. Using darken/multiply or whatever seems best blend the details into your new heightmap, you'll find you need very low opacity to just bring in some details, sometimes you will want to mask out the larger edges and let that just come from your hand made heights if they are accurate already.
  
• Test again.
  
• Now that you have a better understanding of what areas would be darker in normal illumination, maybe you want to try your hand at removing downlighting or whatever from the image, remember not to make it completely flat, a 'true' diffuse does not look good in games, it might look good in a 3d render where you have a million other things to displace/whatever. Diffuse changes (besides lining things up and doing shape changes) should be done after normalmap, I've regretted doing it before many times...
  
• If your diffuse didnt have much lighting to start with, take your heightmap, throw it into njob and output an AO map. Multiply this onto your diffuse, careful with opacity, you don't need to completely blacken areas or anything like that. Use a mask to remove details you dont want, using a soft brush add in deeper areas that would be flat-lit but dimmer than you're getting.
  

 

Does your new normal look good, but it's a bit too strong, making harsh black slopes and over-bright edges?

• Chances are you should be using less 'scale' and rather soften your heightmap a bit by blurring some stuff, use layers/adjustment masks to do it non destructively.
  

 

If you're missing depth in some areas and an AO pass doesn't seem right:

• Take your normal map as you see 'complete' go to the blue layer and gently darken the area. Note that this should not be abused as it will make your normal map look retarded!, the blue chan should be predominantly 100% white for flat facing things. Blend the edges a bit to give a slope. This will adjust the angle at which light illuminates the surface ingame, avoiding the 'straight on' lighting a deeper area would have.
  

 

This approach is very intensive, yes.

 

But once you get the hang of the workflow you can simplify parts of it, specially knowing which tools work best for what and how to use their outputs to augment your work. For example the xNormal photoshop plugin's cavity maps provide a really nice alternative to AO maps for flat textures. SSBump is excellent for drawing out specific elements from a diffuse, such as cracks from some tiles without getting excess data from elsewhere on the image etc.

[nbohr1more]

I'll chime in with my clumsy take... (experts will arrive shortly):

 

It looks like either the resolution of the Normal Map is lower than the texture or the threshold used to create the map was not tuned to pickup fine-details. I would try enlarging the texture to 2x resolution then create the normal map then scale the normal map back down. It should retain more detail.

 

(Unless that's what you've already done... then I don't know what to advise? Enlarge 4x? Manually create details? Model... )

 

(Edit: Expert arrived before my post ...)

Edited September 16, 2010 by nbohr1more

[Fidcal]

Mmm... this is major. I'll do a search for njob but how far I'll get I don't know.

[Serpentine]

Heh, you can find njob over here

 

Yeah that's a pretty big list of things, but it really does become quite easy once you 'get' normal maps. Working from the heightmap really helps you angle the slopes and such, which is what the whole idea of normal maps is, to model the slope of something and no matter how well an app can identify shapes, and work out levels, they all fail at working out the actual slopes on the shape, which is why when you see generated normals, most of the time you're just looking illuminated sharp edges.

 

And thats why crazybump is so praised by game studios, it doesnt really bother to identify shapes, rather their heights... which leaves you with a blobby macro blurred normal. There's just no easy win, a good normalmap takes time :/

 

I did however watch some texturing tuts from Eat3D and some other crowd a while back, AAA Artists really don't have a clue about how normal maps work if they cant generate them from a model.

Went something like:

• Desaturate
  
• Duplicate about 5 times
  
• Guassian blur each one at larger radii
  
• Merge and blur
  
• Generate normal map from height using the nvidia tool, using height info?? from the diffuse or something random.
  
• Adjust levels per channel until they 'look right'.
  

"Strangely" enough the end result looked horrible and didn't represent the texture at all ;/

[nbohr1more]

Well... at least your steps are less intensive than the Arcturus version:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/11482-blender-sculptris-gimp-video-tutorial/

 

...but would simply starting with an increased resolution give better results (rather than Serpentine quality results?)

 

Though that texture is pretty enough to want the deluxe treatment.

[Fidcal]

Time is what I ain't got. Every day I spend on this (and it's a one-off) pushes my map back another day. Anyways...

 

Wow! I did none of that yet but as a quick test I just took the original diffuse > njob > heightmap > normalmap and this is what I got. A LOT better. Needs some thought about what you call downshadows on the diffusemap but look at the result. There is a curve on the carving I didn't even know was there! The end image is with the player lantern on.

 

Thinking further I think part of that shadow is this wood is either two or more woods or stained woods. I might be wrong but I think it is intended to be more red where that shadow is. Plus there is upshadow from the carving below. Mmm..

 

[Fidcal]

No on further thought I think some or all of that reddishness is meant to be shadow as I can see it overlapping the carving at the bottom.

[nbohr1more]

HOLY!

[Serpentine]

Yeah, that came out quite well for a quick diffuse->normal.

 

Flattening the top/bottom flat panel bits and lowering some of the stuff between the leaf parts and you'll be done really.

 

Even leaving it like that would be better than it is now. Tho I'll still carve it up a bit later on - pretty much all of the moldings are on my to-do list.

[Fidcal]

I've slightly lightened some of the shading on the diffuse but I daren't go too far because the area at the bottom of the carved leaves which looks reddish in game is hard to see that outline quite the same on the image file in my paint program. I've also redone the normal from this new image and slightly reduced the scale. This is still not perfect but the shadows are not so harsh and I think I'm going to go with this for now. If it can be improved in the future then fine. I might have to redo my tudor arch and other fittings though because now I see the contours as they are meant to be, some of my alignments no longer make sense. The light is slightly further away than yesterday in this shot so the relief is not so extreme:

 

[nbohr1more]

Added this as a link in the "Normal Maps: Making Good Ones" wiki.

 

http://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Normalmaps%2C_How_to_Make_Good_Ones

Edited April 14, 2011 by nbohr1more

[Bikerdude]

that looks awesome Fids!

[nbohr1more]

I just found this nifty tutorial for creating normal maps by merging photos with different light source locations:

 

http://zarria.net/nrmphoto/nrmphoto.html

 

Kinda hacky but it might help bring in some new textures from Modelling and Art challenged folks...

[PranQster]

http://code.google.c...gimp-normalmap/

 

Also, for tileable diffusemaps for Windows: http://registry.gimp..._w32_inst_0.zip

More info and stuff here

Edited December 7, 2011 by PranQster

[nbohr1more]

Is that tool anywhere close to (or better) than njob though?

[PranQster]

ROFL. I saw some of the previous posts but didn't check the dates and thought this was all a new thread! Doh!

[PranQster]

Is that tool anywhere close to (or better) than njob though?

No idea, never heard of njob. I'll have to look. Ahh, I see now. I downloaded njob to see if I could run it with wine and no-go. So, for me, the GIMP plugins are the proper solution.

Edited December 7, 2011 by PranQster